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The county is celebrating its 200th anniversary this year. Originally a 357,120-acre chunk of Wayne County, Pike became its own county in 1814, taking its name from explorer and soldier Zebulon Montgomery Pike. In 1806, he led a team of explorers who attempted to climb a 14,110-foot peak in Colorado's Rocky Mountains. Waist-deep in snow and out of food, the team turned back but the summit was named Pike's Peak in the explorer's honor.

Pike County is home to large swaths of the best nature has to offer, including about 15,600 acres of the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, 66,400 acres of state forests and 21,500 acres of state game lands.

The first known residents of Pike County were members of the Allegui and Lenape tribes, and their influence remains today in the evocative names that dot the region - Shohola, Lackawaxen and Delaware among them.

Early settlers from Europe tangled with the Native Americans throughout the 1700s and built forts to protect themselves from the county's natives. Some had success in bridging the gap, at least temporarily. History holds that in 1733, Thomas Quick Sr. built a home along Vandermark Creek and counted many of the Native Americans living nearby as friends.

Those relationships with Mr. Quick broke down during the French and Indian Wars, according to a news story written in 1989 about the county's 175th anniversary. Mr. Quick was scalped and killed.

Pike County was also home to a social experiment that seemed better suited to the 20th century. In 1842, a group called the Sylvania Association bought about 2,500 acres in Lackawaxen Twp. and built a commune led by Albert Brisbane, who was inspired by the ideas of Karl Marx and Charles Fourier.

According to a 1948 newspaper article, about 40 families from Albany and New York City were the first settlers in the commune. Newspaper editor Horace Greeley became the group's treasurer; his involvement led to the town being christened in his honor.

Unfortunately, the rocky soil, bad weather and residents ill-prepared for a rural lifestyle led to the commune's failure within three years, according to the 1948 article.

Mr. Brisbane and Mr. Greeley were not the only ones inspired by Pike County's natural beauty, however.

Between 1905 and 1918, author Zane Grey wrote Western novels from his home in Lackawaxen Twp., drawing inspiration for stories like "Riders of the Purple Sage" from his surroundings.

Before Gifford Pinchot served two terms as Pennsylvania governor, he was the first chief of the Forest Service in 1905. The father of conservation, as he came to be known, surely developed his love of forests and meadows while spending time at his parents' summer home, Grey Towers, just outside of Milford. The home was dedicated into a federal institute for conservation study in 1963.

ERIN L. NISSLEY is an assistant metro editor at The Times-Tribune and has lived in the area for seven years. Contact the writer: localhistory@timesshamrock.com

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